ADS specializes in using Ruby on Rails to build advanced, scalable, database-backed web sites for organizations of all sizes. Find out more at our website.

When people browsed over to the Moving Off Campus site they saw the integrated Google map functionalities including mapping as well as an estimated distance to campus that we implemented. Without giving away any secrets, we can tell you that to make this happen we used a gem named google_geocode. This little lovely gem, installed via “gem install google_geocode” uses Google’s geocoding service to return geo-coordinates when you provide your Google API key, an address, city and state. Trust me, if you have to grab and store geocode information this makes life good. If you want to see code post a comment and let us know and we will! Until then, enjoy.

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